


All the Answers

by SnowyAshes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, M/M, h/c, slash goggles optional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 17:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowyAshes/pseuds/SnowyAshes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a case-related injury, a fairly doped up Sherlock tells John about something that has been a source of some confusion to him, hoping John knows what's going on.</p><p>(Slash goggles optional; can be read as just friendship.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Answers

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Matthew, Kimetha, and Katelyn for looking this over for me and offering feedback, despite not even being in the fandom—your help was invaluable.
> 
> That said, I do _not_ currently have an in-fandom beta or Brit-picker. So, if anyone reading this would like to help me out—or even if you just have one or two comments on this specific piece—please let me know!
> 
> Any feedback, including (especially?) constructive criticism and/or nitpicking, is welcome.

“John,” murmurs Sherlock, peering up at him through the haze of painkillers. His skin has a deathly pallor, and the steady blips of the heart monitor in the background are as slow and somber as a funeral dirge. “John, you…” He scrunches his eyebrows and blinks sluggishly, looking vaguely lost.

John sighs softly, leaning across the bed to readjust the IV line, which is somehow catching the half-raised bedrail on Sherlock’s other side as the younger man makes a faint, aborted movement with his right arm. On his way back, John pauses, hovers a moment with his hand in the air, then reaches forward and gently brushes the sweat-dampened curls away from the detective’s forehead. Sherlock’s eyes flutter closed for a moment.

When John eventually sits back in his hard plastic chair, Sherlock’s eyes drag back open and fix upon his friend a thin parody of his usual penetrating gaze. (Not the sharp, all-knowing one, though—the bright-eyed, curious one. The one reserved for John alone, when he somehow, despite all of his ordinariness and predictability, manages to surprise Sherlock yet again, triggering the detective’s instant and unabated fascination.)

“John,” he breathes again, his brow smoothing now from disorientation to mere bafflement. He appears almost apologetic for his confusion as he finally confesses: “John, you… you make my chest feel… funny.”

He stares up at John, eyes only somewhat focused, still looking puzzled, yet earnest and expectant.

As if _John_ has all the answers.

Perhaps he does, though, John thinks tentatively, maybe just this once. Or, not _all_ the answers, but… at least one of them. Perhaps he does have the answer to _this_ not-a-question-(except-really-it-is): Not the answer (or, rather, explanation) Sherlock is looking for, but still the truth.

So John leans forward and takes his friend’s hand, and he says “Alright, Sherlock. That’s okay.” Through the rising lump in his throat, he takes a deep, measured breath. “That’s okay. You make my chest feel funny too.”

Sherlock stares up at him for a moment, as if evaluating his honesty, then relaxes minutely and lets his eyes drop from John’s. “’Kay,” he says softly, and John knows that he will be out like a light within the next ten seconds, because that is the _only_ time you will ever catch Sherlock Holmes pronouncing only _parts_ of words—when he is just falling asleep or just waking up—and he must not realize he does it, because he doesn’t even do it when he’s faking.

John just blinks back the prickling in his eyes, squeezes his friend’s hand—gently, _gently_ —and whispers, “Sleep, Sherlock. We’ll go home soon.”

Sherlock’s eyes slip shut.


End file.
